


Partita

by greywash



Series: Fun in the Sun Creative Calisthenics [5]
Category: Endeavour (TV)
Genre: A bachelor's life for me, Constitutional loneliness, Identity Issues, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-23
Updated: 2018-06-23
Packaged: 2019-05-26 22:52:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 828
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15011177
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/greywash/pseuds/greywash
Summary: It oughtn't, perhaps, to be quite so surprising: Max would never precisely say that he hasknownSergeant Morse, certainly not any more than he knows any other unknowable man; rather, perhaps, that Max had—found him interesting, or—oh,been drawn tohim, perhaps—but notknownhim, surely. Max has no illusions that he has any particular insight into the living.





	Partita

**Author's Note:**

> Today's prompt from [**@virtual-particle**](http://virtual-particle.tumblr.com):
>
>> Here’s another prompt from Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows, since I did that last time. Any fandom, perhaps Endeavour?
>> 
>> Adronitis:  
>  n. frustration with how long it takes to get to know someone—spending the first few weeks chatting in their psychological entryway, with each subsequent conversation like entering a different anteroom, each a little closer to the center of the house—wishing instead that you could start there and work your way out, exchanging your deepest secrets first, before easing into casualness, until you’ve built up enough mystery over the years to ask them where they’re from, and what they do for a living.
> 
> This one took **1:09:43**. **No warnings for this one**. My full warning policy is [in my profile](http://www.ao3.org/users/greywash/profile#warnings), and you are always welcome to [email me](mailto:greywash@gmail.com) with more specific warning-related questions.

It oughtn't, perhaps, to be quite so surprising: Max would never precisely say that he has _known_ Sergeant Morse, certainly not any more than he knows any other unknowable man; rather, perhaps, that Max had—found him interesting, or—oh, _been drawn to_ him, perhaps—but not _known_ him, surely. Max has no illusions that he has any particular insight into the living; and yet Max finds it is, still, surprising: this detail of which Max feels he should have become aware; if not sooner, certainly at some point in these past year. But it _is_ a surprise, still, that Morse would like to kiss him. That _Morse_ would like to _kiss_ him? That Morse would even be the sort of man with whom one might find any sort of amenability to kissing—Max can't say, with any degree of honesty, that he's given the kissing, and Sergeant Morse, any particular thought. And yet Morse appears, surprisingly, to in fact contain a remarkable degree of dedication to kissing, and to kissing, in particular, _Max_ ; from a first damp, rough-edged, and slightly beery kiss that starts in the dark in the cold out the back of the pub—of all places!—and then pauses and continues, pauses and continues, pauses and continues: in Max's car, in Max's entryway, on Max's landing, until in Max's bed all these soft spaces of Morse's body: his throat, his elbows, his long fair thighs, are bared to Max's hands: curious, inquiring. Thinking—strangely, nonsensically— _at last_. _At last_? Because Max has seen Morse before, of course, quite undressed; and yet. And yet. And yet every long pale inch of him seems startling. Inconceivable. As though they belong to a person who Max did not so much _not know_ as _not suspect_ : a person who is naked, who _has naked parts_ (—of all constructions—!); a person with hair at his chest and his groin and his armpits; and with dark, dark eyes.

"I hadn't—" Max says. Tries to say. "I didn't—"

But Morse kisses him again, then; one sticky-warm arm wrapped up around Max's sweaty shoulders, and Max knows better than to insert a question where one is hardly required, so he opens his mouth on Morse's mouth. Pressing his thigh between Morse's thighs as he wraps his hand around Morse's hand sliding-slick between their bodies—his lips part with Morse's lips, and Morse emits a slippery-soft sound—tasting of breath—: and it is _marvelous_. Electric. _Unthinkable_ , nearly, that he should want—but he _does_ want, doesn't he. Quite obviously. And Max—

— _Max_ —

After, Morse rests his cheek against Max's chest.

Shocking, really. Max's hand comes to rest against Morse's thick hair: that seems—the thing to do, rather. Doesn't it. He pats it, like a cat. A thick gingerish curl of hair is jabbing up from behind an ear: _honestly_. Morse's hair is quite soft, in fact.

"I confess," Max says, finally. "I had little idea that I ought to expect—"

He stops, and Morse tilts his face up, gazing at him. 

"What am I to call you?" Max asks, quite helplessly; and Morse's face shifts, brows pressing—in. "It's just," Max adds, quickly, "I keep thinking, I can't call you a name I've never encountered off your warrant card, and if you've got a middle name I don't know it, and I can hardly call you ' _darling_ '—" and the corner of Morse's mouth curls, his eyes relaxing.

"Morse is all right," he says. "Isn't it?" His voice has gone soft and deep, and strange.

"Yes," says Max, "of course it is"; and Morse smiles up at him. Eyes crinkling at the corners. Soft and bright.

Silent Max slides his fingers into Morse's hair. Watching the slow sinking sweep of Morse's eyelashes; and feeling something that he is finding is not entirely unlike alarm. Of all the detectives Max knows at Cowley Road he would say that he knows Morse, perhaps, the best: but that's not quite true, is it? _Can_ it be? Because Max—isn't unfond of Morse, precisely; but he—perhaps, instead, he ought to say that of all the detectives at Cowley Road, Morse seemed the least knowable, and Max had accepted that: not as though he, Max de Bryn, did not personally know Sergeant Morse, but that instead Sergeant Morse was in all meaningful ways unknowable: like film stars, and magazine models, and the faces in Renaissance paintings. What could Max know, even theoretically, of their lives? He was a pathologist, and a bachelor, and short-sighted, and a perfect gentleman; and—oh, he was—. _Content._ He found. With that. But this, now, is a space inside Morse that Max finds he can, in fact, see: a window inside an edifice Max had, for the five years previous, found almost entirely impenetrable. What else, Max wonders, has he failed to see?

 _This is part of you_ , Max wants to say. _Is this part of me too?_ Max wants to ask.

**Author's Note:**

> A partita is a work for a single, unaccompanied instrument. [J.S. Bach, Partita in A minor for solo flute](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Datoqxx-biw).


End file.
